Maybe Dylan can eat his words

Published 6:57 am Wednesday, October 14, 2009

“Within I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

There’s something heartwarming about Emerson’s comment on aging. The author, Barry M. Andrews, of Emerson as Spiritual Guide says, “Emerson’s words are provocative and revolutionary.”

His essential message is that “the religious sentiment is innate and intuitive in human experience. Ministers make religion vital, not by worshipping Jesus or venerating the Bible but by leading their parishioners to look within for revelations of divine and for guidance in living an ethical life.”

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I think ethics need not wait until one is somewhat grown to become aware of ethics. There is room for discussion in this area in pre-school — for sure in elementary school. Do ethics receive the attention they once deserved?

Unfortunately, ethics seem to be facing a “downward flow” these days, especially in higher government, hopefully not city government or state government. I think state government took a spill with Pawlenty’s action when the last session ended following a long hard legislative schedule.

I have to believe that Obama was well deserving of his recent award, but there will be arguments regarding that for days to come, especially from television news commentators and other voices in the news media and bites from the other side.

It’s good to read that Obama’s award for the Nobel Peace Prize is viewed as an affirmation that the U.S. has righted its moral compass.

Perhaps it’s time for Bob Dylan to offer up a song about the “World Getting Right” as opposed to his “World Gone Wrong.”

However, there will forever be arguments in America that will not satisfy all. The other day an article in the Star Trib mentioned a Los Angeles Police Department officer who was the only female Marine officer discharged last year under the “don’t ask, don’t tell.” She served a seven-month tour in Iraq as a Reservist when she received a call from a lieutenant colonel informing her she “that she was under investigation of being a lesbian.” Obama pledged for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits how state, local and federal bodies can recognize partnerships and determine benefits. Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said, “It’s not just about policy, it’s really about the day-to-day life and safety of individuals and their families across the country.”

It was also mentioned in the Star Tribune that Blake School is the only big school in the state doing a reading of “The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later,” along with 100 theaters around the nation Monday, the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death. Remember that?

I hope teachers are sharing the article, but I have my doubts. The play is billed as a “new epilogue to the original story of his grisly murder, told in the voices of the people of Laramie, Wyoming.”

The other day words of the late Norman Mailer were mentioned on line making reference to the Vietnam War where he wrote in 1965, when I was being drafted: “Vietnam [to Americans] is faceless” and later said “Bombing a country, at the same time you are offering aid is as morally repulsive as beating us a kid in an alley and stopping to ask for a kiss.”

He added: “The image had been prepared for our departure-we heard of nothing but the corruption of the South Vietnam government and the professional cowardice of the South Vietnamese generals. We read how a Viet Cong army of 40,000 soldiers was whipping a government army of 400,000. We were told in our newspapers how the Viet Cong armed themselves with American weapons brought to them by deserters or captured in battle with government troops; we knew it was an empty war for our side.”

Is there an association facing our current “war” in Afghanistan? Is Afghanistan “faceless” to Americans?

I got to shake hands with Norman Mailer years ago in Minneapolis where he had performed a dialog with another famous literary name performing a dialog of Scott Fitzgerald, Minnesota’s own. Leaving, I saw Norman standing back a ways near a limousine by himself, so being who I am, I walked up said I enjoyed his performance or something like that. It didn’t impress him.

And speaking of writers, it was interesting to sit in on a poetry reading in the AJC cafeteria Monday afternoon with a diverse group of students, teachers, along with a few of us elders.